right-wing gathering. The skinheads, carry
ing heavy clubs, seem to have the upper hand.
Some even wear swastika armbands. I watch
the fists flying and see the ambulances arrive.
They load rightists and leftists into the vehi
cles, gun their engines, and disappear into
the warm spring evening. The pavement is
splotched with blood.
WARSAW, POLAND, MAY 4
With the collapse of the police state, law and
order have broken down. Cops are seldom
seen, except halfheartedly directing traffic,
and clearly they would just as soon not inter
fere in the lives of fellow citizens. As a result, a
wave of burglaries, stickups, muggings, and
murders is sweeping Eastern Europe.
"Business is fantastic," says the young man
running the gas gun store. He is about 40, well
dressed, has impeccable manners-and he
sells all kinds of gas weapons. Imported from
West Germany, these pistols fire gas pellets:
tear gas, temporarily paralyzing gas, asphyxi
ating gas, and skin-burning gas, all perfectly
legal now, and perhaps of some comfort to
those who fear the crime wave. The most pop
ular gun, at least among younger customers, is
a heavy black model known as the "Miami,"
after the Miami Vice television program, a
favorite in Poland.
The irony is that this gun merchant is a for
mer agent of Urzad Bezpieczeistwa, Poland's
disbanded secret-police force-UB for short.
Hundreds of former communist UB have gone
into business for themselves, using their net
works and party assets to open gun boutiques,
consulting firms, and travel agencies, often in
partnership with Western businessmen.
"So," says the gun salesman, "what do you
think is going to happen to the three and a half
million members of the Communist Party?
You think they'll just vanish into thin air?"
He smiles. He knows that I know he's a former
UB agent and no explanations are necessary.
But his question makes me wonder: What
happens to the hundreds of thousands of
secret-police agents and informers in Eastern
Europe? Will they find a place in the new
democratic order? The most extensive net
work, in East Germany, was the dreaded
Staatssicherheitdienst, the State Security
Ministry. Known as the Stasi, this agency kept
files on four million East Germans and two
million West Germans.
The files still exist, presumably in the hands
of new authorities. Until those records are
opened, no one will know the details of the
state's collective crimes. But blackmail, mur
der, and torture existed on so vast a scale that it
would be almost impossible to exact punish
ment. In most of Eastern Europe the new gov
ernments won't even attempt to pursue former
agents, now that the nightmare has ended.
"It would be unfair to deprive them of their
retirement," says Jacek Kurofi, Poland's min
ister of labor and social policy. A former dissi
dent and a veteran of several UB prisons,
Kurofi believes in the rule of law-even for the
secret-police agents who once abused him.
"Only if they are convicted of specific crimes
in a court of law should they be denied their
benefits," he says.
In Czechoslovakia I meet another former
prisoner of the communist regime who is now
the country's interior minister. He refuses to
publish lists of former informers, fearful that
vengeful citizens would "hunt them down."
Some countries, lacking a pool of experienced
talent, are forced to hire former agents for
security and intelligence jobs. "We must do
the best we can," says a Polish friend who is a
senior security officer. "Sometimes we look
the other way when it comes to hiring." Some
times, in fact, the new regimes are embar
rassed to learn that they have inadvertently
hired former agents. In East Germany, for
instance, three new cabinet ministers and 68
new parliament members were accused of
having worked for the Stasi.
LW6WEK SLASKI, POLAND, MAY 8
This is the 45th anniversary of the Third
Reich's fall, an event that changed the map of
Europe. I drive along the Neisse River, which
divides Poland and Germany, and I am re
minded of the extensive German territories
ceded to Poland after the war.
On the Polish side you see towns and vil
lages that look tidy and prosperous, unmistak
ably German to this day, but there are almost
no Germans here. Millions of them were
expelled to the west after 1945 to make room
for millions of Poles who settled in this wheat
farming country after the Soviets expelled
them from territories Stalin had seized.
Late in the morning we reach the Polish
town of Lw6wek laski, where elderly men in
sport shirts sit around enjoying the first beer of
the day and the warm sun. They play chess on
the sidewalk with giant knights and pawns
Dispatches From EasternEurope